Many know Java as one of the simplest, but most powerful (not to mention sought-after) programming languages used by web developers. There are others who see it in the opposite light, saying that Java is a hard and more complex programming language. In order to execute your Java coding more effectively, there are a handful of Java tools that web …

Stackify is thrilled to announce our latest release, Linux Agent 2.0 and Java APM 1.15. We think you’ll be excited about this release, too, and here are just a few reasons why. What’s New in Our Linux Agent 2.0 and Java APM Release? In this latest release, we’ve added additional agent installation options and support for additional application servers, including: …

Web services have taken the development world by storm, especially in recent years as they’ve become more and more widely adopted. There are naturally many reasons for this, but first, let’s understand what exactly a web service is. The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) defines “web of services” as “message-based design frequently found on the Web and in enterprise software”. …

Java remains a popular programming language, and it’s still the most sought-after programming language among employers. That means if you’re looking for a programming job, prospective employers will likely be asking questions designed to gauge your knowledge of this long-established programming language. (If you’re interviewing for new developer positions, you should probably brush up on your DevOps interview questions, too.) …

JUnit 5 is the updated version of the highly popular testing library for Java applications, JUnit, scheduled to be released in Q3 2017. The new version enables a lot more testing options and finally adds support for Java 8 features. In fact, JUnit 5 requires Java 8 to work. The library is composed of several modules, organized in 3 main sub-projects: JUnit …

Gradle is one of several Java development tools featured in Stackify’s Comprehensive Java Developer’s Guide, but it’s not the only build automation tool to consider. Maven is an older and commonly used alternative, but which build system is best for your project? With other tools, such as Spring, allowing developers to choose between the two systems, coupled with an increasing …

The Java Persistence API (JPA), and Hibernate ORM as its most popular implementation are used in most Java applications to interact with a relational database. The main reason for their popularity is that they use object-relational mapping to abstract the database interactions and make it very easy to implement simple CRUD operations. But this abstraction also has its downsides. Hibernate …

There are many types of errors that could be encountered while developing Java software, from, but most are avoidable. We’ve rounded up 50 of the most common Java software errors, complete with code examples and tutorials to help you work around common coding problems. For more tips and tricks for coding better Java programs, download our Comprehensive Java Developer’s Guide, …

Log4j2 is the updated version of the popular and influential log4j library, used extensively throughout the Java ecosystem for so many years. Version 2.x keeps all the logging features of its predecessor and builds on that foundation with some significant improvements, especially in the area of performance. And of course, given how instrumental logging is for any application, both for …

Java remains one of the most popular programming languages in 2017, landing second only to JavaScript among the languages developers use most. Developers for this popular language are in high demand, as well, requiring a diverse skillset including communication, in-depth knowledge of the ecosystem, and of course an understanding of the language so deep they could code in their sleep. …

Microservices are increasingly used in the development world as developers work to create larger, more complex applications that are better developed and managed as a combination of smaller services that work cohesively together for larger, application-wide functionality. Tools such as Service Fabric are rising to meet the need to think about and build apps using a piece-by-piece methodology that is, frankly, …

DevOps sees the coming together of practices, philosophies, and tools that allow you to create services and applications very quickly. This means that you can improve on your apps and evolve them at a much faster rate than those developers who are using traditional software development processes. We’ve talked about DevOps, in general, a great deal, but today, we’re going …

Java remains one of the most popular programming languages. In our recent deep-dive into the hottest programming languages for 2017, Java landed second among the most-used programming languages and the languages with the most active repositories on GitHub – beat out only by JavaScript in both categories. Aside from its widespread use, it’s also the most in-demand programming language among …

Logging runtime information in your Java application is critically useful for understanding the behavior of any app, especially in cases when you encounter unexpected scenarios, errors or just need track certain application events. In a real-world production environment, you usually don’t have the luxury of debugging. And so, logging files can be the only thing you have to go off …

VisualVM is a Java profiler, one of the several types of Java performance tools (to see more of our favorite Java performance tools, check out this post). In today’s post, we’ll take a look at VisualVM, how it works, and some integrations and alternatives. A Definition of VisualVM VisualVM is a powerful tool that provides a visual interface to see deep and …

The Spring Ecosystem There are a two stable, mature stacks for building web applications in the Java ecosystem, and considering the popularity and strong adoption, the Spring Framework is certainly the primary solution. Spring offers a quite powerful way to build a web app, with support for dependency injection, transaction management, polyglot persistence, application security, first-hand REST API support, an MVC framework …

Debugging performance issues in production can be a pain and in some cases impossible without the right tools. Java profilers have been around forever, but the profilers most developers think about are only one type – there are actually three: Standard JVM Profilers that track every detail of the JVM (CPU, thread, memory, garbage collection, etc). Lightweight profilers that highlight your application with …

For our most recent BuildBetter publication, we created an ultimate Comprehensive Java Developer’s Resource Guide. Not only does this feature awesome tools that help Java devs develop, monitor performance, find errors, and distribute messages, it also includes other Java Developer-related content – namely Java Developer Twitter . We love Twitter – seriously, it’s our favorite way to reach developers across …

Tools make our lives easier – as humans, we’ve used tools to improve processes since the beginning of time. At BuildBetter, one of our highest priorities is to make dev’s lives easier. We’re developers ourselves, so we know that tools are an absolute necessity to get the job done as efficiently as possible with as few bugs as possible. That’s …

At Stackify, we battle our fair share of code performance problems too, including issues surrounding Java garbage collection. In this post, we’ll take a look at Java garbage collection, how it works, and why it matters. A Definition of Java Garbage Collection Java garbage collection is the process by which Java programs perform automatic memory management. Java programs compile to …